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The Cedars: Gulf Cone / Hughes Brothers Building

I drove by today and noticed they are replacing the current (perhaps original) windows starting with the top floor, with new cheap looking vinyl crap.

My first concern is this would indicate they are not applying for HTC's and therefore would have no restrictions on alterations to the building (the powers that allocate the historic preservation tax credits are particularly picky about windows).

Does anyone know what is going on with the building? I have been interested in redeveloping the building and I have tried to contact the owners numerous times through different channels without any luck.

This building was brought up in conversation not long ago. Another board member writes:

I believe this is currently owned by the Institute in Basic Life Principal: http://dallas.iblp.org/index.html -- I attended a meeting a few years ago attended by various acrhitects, engineers, planners and financiers regarding the prospect of redeveloping the property - but parking seems to be the biggest hurdle to overcome. By the way - the potential purchaser was the trust that a famous sports star had set up which was managed by family members - and the proposed use was a mixed use development with lofts (condos) - with some space set aside for ex-con/at risk youth training/rehabilitation not necessarily a cobination made in heaven, but the latter was a requirement of the trust to fund the former.

Without some creative rezoning or similar assistance from the city I suspect that this property will remain unimproved until the parking issues are overcome - which is a shame as it is a really beautiful building.

"When it began production of sweet ciders and candies from this factory about 1895, the Hughes Brothers Manufacturing Company was among the most respected industries in Dallas. Yet within twenty years, this plant and others like it had become contributors to the decline of the Cedars as people became increasingly enamored with industries in their back yards. Though the original building on S.Ervay at the corner of Sullivan was destroyed, one of its additions, built in 1903, today houses the ice cream cone production facilities of the Gulf Cone Company"

According to DCAD it is owned by the mother of a prominent locally raised NBA player, and not by the church that owns the "Ambassador Hotel" across the street. As far as I can tell the IBLP never has had ownership of the building.

SMU Urban - I had heard that the mother had purchased the property without having done any due diligence-and then ran up against hurdles with parking etc- but could not find any evidence to that fact - seems I was looking at the wrong address in DCAD -ninjatunes message above with the quote from me is in line with your findings, and if they are still pursuing the same approach this is going to be condos with some kind of offender rehabilitation facility.

BTW SMU Urban if there is still an interest in pursuing development of the building, my connection is somewhat arms-length and may not even be involved with this project any more, but I woiuld be happy to at least try and facilitate a meeting would love to see this buildings full potential realized.

Something is happening with this building.
All the Windows have been replaced with new windows.
The parking lot has been emptied, the chain link fence taken down and a new brick fence put up.
Workers are in and out of this building for a couple of weeks now.

Gulf Cone Building

Lots of memories here. from 1986-1990 I attended the Education and Social Services Magnet as we would drive through past the building you could smell the cones being made in the building. Such a sweet smell indeed. I have a photo I took with a film camera back I so need to find. I did another shoot several years ago in the cedar are but those were lost to bad memory card One of these days I will go back out to that area and shoot again soon this time with film.